On December 21, 1913, the first known published crossword appeared in the New York World newspaper. Today, in celebration, we're challenging you to complete our New York Public Library-themed crossword!Read More ›

Saturday, November 21 is International Games Day, an annual event to encourage play and games at libraries all over the world. We will be celebrating IGD 2015 with games and coding for all ages, click for the full schedule!Read More ›

For this week's episode of the New York Public Library podcast, Colson Whitehead discusses poker. In 2011, the author traveled to the World Series of Poker, where he competed and reported back for Grantland. Read More ›

Happy birthday, Thomas Pynchon! In honor of the author's dazzling literary headrushes we've put together a crossword that only a real fan can conquer. So put down your muted post horn and show us your Pynchon puzzling know-how.Read More ›

Hello and welcome to the wrap up of Of Dice and Men: The Story of Dungeons & Dragons and the People Who Play It by David M. Ewalt. I hope you enjoy or are enjoying the book as much as I have. If you have any comments or questions please feel free to write below. For August the book is The Circle by David Eggers.Read More ›

Welcome back to the Reader's Den for part three of Of Dice and Men: The Story of Dungeons & Dragons and the People Who Play It by David M. Ewalt. In Part two we discussed the chapters on Roleplaying. In this post we discuss the history of Dungeons & Dragons itself.Read More ›

In Of Dice and Men, David Ewalt recounts the development of Dungeons & Dragons from its roots in the games of the Ancient World and 19th Century Europe, through its many incarnations and editions and the hysteria that came with it, to its current incarnation in video games.Read More ›

David Pratzer, aka "Patzer-face," is a chess novice who is surprised to learn that his father is a grandmaster at the game. Visualizing the chess board, spending hours each day studying open moves... chess is mental combat, and it emotionally and mentally exhausts its participants.Read More ›

On his sixth birthday, Robert James Fischer received a chess set from his 11-year-old sister Joan. It was the beginning of Bobby Fischer's epic journey from a poor Brooklyn school boy to a national and international chess celebrity.Read More ›

At a recent internal hacking event here, NYPL Labs developer Paul Beaudoin recruited me into an interesting project: transforming one of the library's 20,000 digitized historical maps into the three-dimensional world of the building game Minecraft.

At the Chatham Square Branch, the children and teens that join together in groups send one clear message to each other when playing two certain card games: I’M SENDING YOU TO THE GRAVEYARD! Read More ›

The next time we had "no-computer/board game time" I was amazed at the reaction from our regulars. When asked the same question and replying with the standard answer, I heard an exuberant "Ooh! We can play board games now? "Read More ›

Perhaps you thought that everything that can be said about the zombies-vs.-survivors story The Walking Dead has been said already. You've already read the graphic novels, watched the TV show, and talked about each episode after you watched it. Ah … but have you played the board game?

Earlier this year I received a copy of The Walking Dead board game that is based on the TV show (there's another board game based on the graphic novels), and I figured that my Teen Advisory Group would be up to the challenge of playing it. I also figured that Friday the

Alexander, "Zander" for short, is a student at the elite Da Vinci Academy for the Gifted and Talented. There, he belongs to a club known as the Cruisers that publishes an alternative newspaper, The Palette. Each member of the Cruisers has a special talent. Kambui, Zander's best friend, is into photography. LaShonda